1977 · Behind the Songs
A Neil Diamond song he kept to himself for forty years, and the last of Glen Campbell’s eight Easy Listening chart-toppers.
In the summer of 1977, Glen Campbell took a song Neil Diamond had written — and then kept to himself for more than forty years — and turned it into a No. 1 record. “Sunflower” was released on June 20, 1977, as the second single from Campbell’s album Southern Nights, with “How High Did We Go” on the B-side. It ran two minutes and fifty seconds, it was produced by Gary Klein with Campbell himself, and it came out on Capitol 4445 as pure country pop. It reached No. 4 on the country chart and No. 39 on the Billboard Hot 100 — and No. 1 on the Easy Listening chart, where it spent a single week at the top. That last detail matters: it was the eighth and final Easy Listening No. 1 of Campbell’s career. The sunflower turned its face to the sun one last time, and then the chart moved on.
The song Neil Diamond wouldn’t release
Neil Diamond wrote “Sunflower” — and then sat on it. Diamond, one of the great songwriters of his generation, had a habit of writing more than he recorded, and “Sunflower” stayed in the drawer for decades. He did not release his own version until late 2018, when it finally appeared in his 50th Anniversary Collectors Edition 6-CD set — forty-one years after Glen Campbell had already taken it to No. 1. There is something fitting about that delay: “Sunflower” is a song about patience, about growing toward the light at your own speed. Diamond wrote it, Campbell grew it, and the songwriter only claimed it back when both men were legends looking back.
Southern Nights and the summer of 1977
The album was Southern Nights, Campbell’s 1977 LP, and the title track had already been a massive hit — Campbell’s version of Allen Toussaint’s song had gone to No. 1 on the pop, country, and Adult Contemporary charts earlier that year. “Sunflower” was the follow-up single, the second release from the album, and it had a tough act to follow. Where “Southern Nights” was a groove, “Sunflower” was a glow — two minutes and fifty seconds of warm country pop, Campbell’s voice as smooth as it had ever been, the production polished to a shine. Gary Klein co-produced with Campbell, and the record sounds like high summer: bright, unhurried, and gone too soon.
Why a sunflower
The sunflower is the most American of flowers — big, plain, unpretentious, turning its heavy head to follow the light. It is also, as a metaphor, pure Campbell: the Arkansas-raised boy who followed the spotlight from a farm to a television studio without ever seeming to chase it. Diamond’s lyric never strains for poetry; it trusts the flower to do the work. And Campbell, who had spent the seventies as country’s most televised smile, sang it like a man who recognized himself in the image — someone who had grown tall by facing the sun. In 1977, that reading would have seemed merely sweet. In retrospect, with everything we know about the long sunset of Campbell’s career, it reads like a promise: keep turning toward the light.
The chart journey
Released on June 20, 1977, “Sunflower” climbed to No. 4 on the Billboard country chart and No. 39 on the Hot 100. But its true home was Easy Listening radio, where it went to No. 1 for one week — Campbell’s eighth chart-topper in the format, and his last. Around the world it traveled well: No. 4 on Canada’s Adult Contemporary chart, No. 7 on Canada’s country chart, No. 37 on Canada’s Top Singles, No. 34 in New Zealand, No. 19 in West Germany. At year’s end it still stood tall: No. 36 on the 1977 year-end Adult Contemporary chart and No. 46 on the year-end Hot Country chart. Not a blockbuster — a steady, sunny, grown-up hit, the kind Campbell had been making for a decade.
The last of the eight
Eight Easy Listening No. 1s is a career in itself, and “Sunflower” closed the book. Campbell had owned the format since the late sixties — “Gentle on My Mind,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman,” and “Galveston” had all spoken in the format’s soft-spoken language — and “Sunflower” was the final sentence. There is a poignancy in that: the last No. 1 was a song about a flower that follows the sun, sung by a man whose own brightest years were just beginning to fade into the long afternoon of his career. He would have more country hits, more television, more triumphs. But on the Easy Listening chart, the sun set with “Sunflower.”
What to listen for
Listen for the ease. Campbell never pushes “Sunflower” — he lets it bloom, verse by verse, his guitar work understated beneath the vocal. Listen for the B-side, “How High Did We Go,” a reminder of the vinyl era’s quiet generosity. Listen for the two minutes and fifty seconds: in an age of extended disco mixes, “Sunflower” says what it has to say and stops, like a man tipping his hat. And listen for Neil Diamond in the writing — the sturdy melody, the unembarrassed warmth. Diamond kept the song for forty-one years before recording it himself. Campbell only needed one summer.